A few years ago, I had the pleasure of attending an holiday season concert featuring music for combinations of harpsichord, violin, and voice -- all fine players of early music and well-known in that region. The violinist accompanied by the harpsichordist had a very strong presence and produced a very musical and memorable performance. This included a bit of swaying and even some hair flipping. :) The singer, by surprising contrast, stood perfectly still -- quite like a statue -- and delivered some beautiful singing, but failed to communicate anything but pretty sounds even though she was singing words right to us.
It was the oddest experience to observe the diva holding the violin and the straightforward musician singing with nary a gesture or dramatic head shake or raised eyebrow. This singer even had (has) long, beautiful hair and lovely face waiting to add a bit of visual drama...but even so!
I came to know this singer personally a bit better later on and learned that she is *very* uncomfortable with any sort of non-vocal phenomena in her performing. Even to the point of rejecting the church singer's ONE gesture -- raising your arm to signal the congregation in. Her singing and musicianship, however, reamin top-notch.
This thread was talking about actual words (as mike iterates below) so I'm a bit off the point, but it caused me to think of this interesting concert experience, the like of which I haven't observed since.
-Jen
--- Greypins@a... wrote: > by 'expression', i meant the conveyance of a > thought. though music may > evoke a variety of reactions, it cannot convey an > idea. even a simple > thought like 'the book is red", an idea so clearly > conveyed verbally, cannot > be conveyed through music, no matter how expressive > the instrumentalist. > though armstrong and elton john and a multitude of > elborately gestured > pianists may indicate that there is something going > on through their > gesturing, they are at a loss to identify what that > something is. > > mike, a chronic sufferer of 'guitar face' >
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